My specialties
IT Law
Information technology law (“IT law”) concerns the large area of software, hardware and data processing, which is developing and changing faster than almost any other area. It is therefore easy to lose track here. We offer you sound advice and support you in all legal matters relating to your IT, including contract review and drafting, licenses, hosting and, last but not least, cybersecurity, to ensure that your IT business practices are legally sound and protected from malicious interference.
Commercial Law
You will hardly experience a working day on which you are not confronted with questions of commercial law, regardless of whether these are your own terms and conditions of delivery or purchase, ongoing agreements with customers or project-specific contracts. With our many years of experience, we can help you with the rapid provision of standard contracts as well as with the drafting of complex special agreements. We can also check the rules and regulations of your business partners and assist you in contract negotiations.
Company law
Company law covers the legal relationships between companies managed as partnerships (GbR, oHG, KG, PartG) or corporations (GmbH, UG, AG, SE, Verein), their shareholders and their executive bodies. Company law regulates and organizes the mostly similar but individual interests of these parties. If – as is often the case – the general statutory regulations do not adequately reflect the interests of the parties involved, they can use individual agreements and regulations to create a set of rules that deviates from the general statutory regulations and is tailored to their needs. Company law offers a great deal of freedom for this, which needs to be utilized. If disputes nevertheless arise between the company, shareholders or executive bodies, a forward-looking approach will prove its worth in the event of a company dispute.
Constructive law - that is an important keyword for my work.
Contracts, for example, are plans, just as technical drawings are plans. If you know many design elements and how they interact, you can design better. I have been designing since 1976; most of my publications concern contract law, including 100 pages of IT contracts with commentaries. Creative ideas are often required.
Always ask about the statics: Will it hold? In most cases, we need to ask about the dynamics: How can this develop further? The question of practical usefulness must always be asked: Is the text understandable for the non-lawyers who are supposed to deal with it? Is it a tool for the contracting parties to get along?
In my head, law is a construction kit that I can use to create constructive solutions. For me, this is a great task.
Career
Prof. Dr. Michael Bartsch studied law and literature at the Universities of Hamburg, Geneva and Freiburg im Breisgau. He completed his legal clerkship at the Regional Court of Karlsruhe and at the Senator for Science and Art in Berlin.
In 1976, he joined the law firm founded by his father Alfred Bartsch in 1950, which operated under the name “Bartsch und Partner” until June 30, 2011. He gave the firm its focus on law and technology.
Prof. Dr. Bartsch was appointed Dr. rer. pol. He received his doctorate from the University of Karlsruhe and was appointed honorary professor at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design in 1999.
Prof. Dr. Bartsch is one of the founders of IT law in Germany. He was the founding chairman of the “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Informationstechnologie und Recht e. V.” which later became one of the two founding institutions of the “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Recht und Informatik e. V. (DGRI)”, and was most recently Chairman of the Advisory Board of this scientific society. He has been a member of the editorial board of the journal “Computer und Recht” since 1987 and is now its editor-in-chief. In the winter semester 1984/1985, he held the first lecture on IT contract law at a German university at the University of Karlsruhe.
Prof. Dr. Bartsch has published numerous articles on contract law, in particular on the drafting of contracts in the field of information technology.
The magazine “Computer und Recht” dedicated the October 2011 issue to his 65th birthday and the October 2016 issue to his 70th birthday. The German Society for Law and Informatics (DGRI) published a detailed biographical tribute in its 2011 yearbook (author: Thomas Heymann).
Prof. Dr. Bartsch was invited to speak at the German Jurists’ Conference 2016 on the topic of “Digital economy – analog law – does the German Civil Code need an update?”.
Memberships
- German Society for Law and Informatics e.V. (DGRI)
1986 – 1999: Board of Directors
1995 – 2005: Spokesman of the expert committee for software protection
2005 to October 2011: Member of the Advisory Board
from 2007 Chairman of the Advisory Board - Journal “Computer and Law”
Member of the editorial team since 1987, later of the editorial board - Friends of the Research Center for Information Technology (FZI) Karlsruhe e. V.
Member of the board of the association - Bundesverband IT-Mittelstand
Member of the advisory board for “Software Hosted in Germany “. “Software Hosted in Germany” is an initiative of the Bundesverband IT-Mittelstand e.V. (BITMi). - Institut Ökonomie der Zukunft (IOZ)
Founding partner and managing director - ISB AG
Chairman of the Supervisory Board - Max Reger Institute
Member of the Board of Trustees - Horst Antes Study Foundation
Member of the Advisory Board - Fördergesellschaft ZKM / HfG e.V.
Member of the Executive Board
Education
- Studied law and literature at the Universities of Hamburg, Geneva and Freiburg im Breisgau
- Legal clerkship at the Regional Court of Karlsruhe and at the Senator for Science and Art in Berlin
- Doctorate (Dr. rer. pol. at the University of Karlsruhe (Software und das Jahr 2000 – Haftung und Versicherungsschutz für ein technisches Großproblem, Nomos Verlag Baden-Baden 1998)
Teaching activities
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Contract drafting in IT law since the winter semester 1985/86 - Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design
Copyright and Media Law since the summer semester 1994
